Does grief appeal to you, ye leal, Heaven's tears with ours to blend? The halo's veil is on, and pale The beams of light descend. The wife repines, the babe declines, The leaves prolong their bend, Above, below, all signs are woe, The heifer moans her friend.
The taper's glow of waxen snow, The ray when noon is nigh, Was far out-peer'd, till disappear'd Our star of morn, as high The southern west its blast released, And drown'd in floods the sky-- Ah woe! was gone the star that shone, Nor left a visage dry For her, who won as win could none The people's love so well. O, welaway! the dirging lay That rung from Moy its knell; Alas, the hue, where orbs of blue, With roses wont to dwell! How can we think, nor swooning sink, To earth them in the cell?
Silk wrapp'd thy frame, as lily stem, And snowy as its flower, So once, and now must love allow, The grave chest such a dower! The fairest shoot of noble root A blast could overpower; 'Tis woman's meed for chieftain's deed, That bids our eyes to shower.
Beseems his grief the princely chief, Who reins the charger's pride, And gives the gale the silken sail, That flaps the standard's side; Who from the hall where sheds at call, The generous shell its tide, And from the tower where Meiners'[147] power Prevails, brought home such bride.
[147] She was a daughter of Menzies of that Ilk, in Perthshire. The founder of the family was a De Moyeners, in the reign of William the Lion. The name in Gaelic continued to testify to its original, being _Meini_, or _Meinarach_.